Culling

Example of WvW Battle with Culling On

Example of WvW Battle with Culling Off

When a player character moves through the game world, any character (other players, NPCs, monsters) within a certain radius around the player (visible range) gets reported to the player's game client. This lets the game draw those characters, allows the player to select them, shoot at them, etc.

Culling is a network design used by ArenaNet to limit the number of characters within visible range that are reported by the server to your game client. Once reached, this limit results in only the characters/NPCs closest to the player being reported to the client. The aim of this limitation is to:

• Limit server bandwidth and network resources.
• Reduce client-side resource utilization and client side technology requirements.

Although achieving these aims, culling has led to numerous problems due to nearby players and NPCs becoming completely invisible. While this is considered a problem throughout both PvE and WvW, it has been a particular problem within WvW, where the number of players during many battles is considerably larger than the chosen limit, resulting in numerous enemy players not being visible to opposing forces.

Removal in World vs. World

WvW: A Charr and female Human shown with WvW Character Quality set to Low (left) and Lowest (right).

Culling has been removed from WvW in the Flame and Frost: The Razing release on March 26, 2013. WvW players are now expected to control the load on their systems in order to attain acceptable frame rates, by introducing limits themselves, using two new graphics settings:

• WvW Character Limit: Five settings from Lowest to Highest. Controls the total number of character models that may be displayed in WvW. The remaining characters will appear as nameplates only. It is assumed that the farther they are, the more probable that only their nameplate will be visible. The exact number of characters corresponding to these settings is unknown.^{[verification requested]}
• WvW Character Quality: 3 settings from Lowest to Medium. Controls the number of high quality character models that may be displayed in WvW. Among the characters that are drawn (controlled using the setting above), this setting determines the number that is drawn normally, in high quality. The rest will appear as low quality character models which consume less resources on the player's computer.

Culling in PvE

Culling was observed to gradually increase in the PvE areas since the game's launch. The current observed limit is around 30 friendly NPCs and 12 monsters.^{[verification requested]} As distant characters come closer, their bodies become visible some distance before their nameplates appear. Visible, but distant characters and monsters cannot be selected until they come within a minimum distance.

As you move your character in a direction, new characters/NPCs will gradually appear into the scene (taking a few seconds) while those behind you disappear. This gradual apparition was one of the issues affecting WvW stealthy characters, and providing them with a few seconds of extra invisibility as they came out of stealth.

Culling in PvE was removed with the Clockwork Chaos release on August 20, 2013.

Low Quality Models

Player models shown with Character Quality set to Lowest

Low quality models appear in both PvE and WvW (but not in PvP, including Heart of the Mists). They are faster to draw mainly due to lower detail, and because all characters wear one armor design per armor weight, and use one body model for both male and female Asura, one for Charr and one shared by Humans, Sylvari and Norn. The bodies and armor are also uniformly tinted to improve performance. In WvW, they use the team's color.

	Humans, Norn, Sylvari
	Heavy	Medium	Light
Head	Commander's Helm	Duelist Mask	Devout Helm
Shoulders	Dark Pauldrons Skin	Studded Shoulders
Chest	Primeval Warplate	Duelist Coat	Country Coat
Gloves	Forgeman Gauntlets	Ascalonian Sentry Gloves	Acolyte Gloves
Pants	Heavy Plate Greaves	Outlaw Pants	Country Pants
Shoes	Heritage Warboots	Outlaw Boots	Inquest Shoes

	Asura
	Heavy	Medium	Light
Head	Electroplated Helm	Protean Helm	Magician Mask
Shoulders	Electroplated Epaulets	Protean Epaulets	Apostle Cowl
Chest	Electroplated Coat	Protean Coat	Magician Coat
Gloves	Electroplated Gloves	Protean Gloves	Magician Gloves
Pants	Electroplated Leggings	Protean Leggings	Magician Legs
Shoes	Electroplated Boots	Protean Boots	Magician Boots

	Charr
	Heavy	Medium	Light
Head	Legion Visor	Wrangler Helm	Magus Shroud
Shoulders	Legion Spaulders	Wrangler Shoulders	Magus Shoulders
Chest	Legion Hauberk	Rawhide Vest (shorter version)	Magus Coat
Gloves	Legion Fists	Wrangler Gloves	Magus Gloves
Pants	Legion Tassets	Wrangler Leggings	Magus Boots
Shoes	Legion Boots	Wrangler Boots	Magician Boots

See also

• World vs. World: The End of Culling, by Habib Loew (March 13, 2013)
• Colin Johanson's Forum post on removing Culling from PvE in 2013 (March 14, 2013)